Drug Prohibition Quotes

• Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Weed, Men, Blow

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• Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing.

  Harry J. Anslinger

  Marijuana, Communism, Communist

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• Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind.

  Edward Gibbon

  Government, Law, Punishment

  Edward Gibbon (1846). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.444

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• Congress should definitely consider decriminalizing possession of marijuana. We should concentrate on prosecuting the rapists and burglars who are a menace to society.

  Dan Quayle

  Weed, War, Marijuana

  "Legalizing Marijuana: Drug Policy Reform and Prohibition Politics". Book by Rudolph Joseph Gerber, 2004.

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• Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men.

  Harry J. Anslinger

  Weed, Marijuana, Men

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• Power is sweet; it is a drug, the desire for which increases with a habit.

  Bertrand Russell

  Sweet, War, Political

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• I'd rather that England should be free than that England should be compulsorily sober. With freedom we might in the end attain sobriety, but in the other alternative we should eventually lose both freedom and sobriety.

  William Magee

  War, Sobriety, Liberty

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• Children are often the silent victims of drug abuse.

  Rick Larsen

  Children, Humor, Alcohol

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• The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Government, Political

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Inaugural addresses and messages. Replies to public addresses. Indian addresses. Miscellaneous: 1. Notes on Virginia; 2. Biographical sketches of distinguished men; 3. The batture of New Orleans”, p.400

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• I am against Prohibition because it has set the cause of temperence back twenty years; because it has substituted an ineffective campaign of force for an effective campaign of education; because it has replaced comparatively uninjurious light wines and beers with the worst kind of hard liquor and bad liquor; because it has increased drinking not only among men but has extended drinking to women and even children.

  William Randolph Hearst

  Children, War, Drinking

  William Randolph Hearst (1952). “William Randolph Hearst: a portrait in his own words”

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• Mistrust those in whom the urge to punish is strong.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Strong, War, Drug

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• While democracy must have its organizations and controls, its vital breath is individual liberty.

  Charles Evans Hughes

  War, Organization, Drug

  Statement, May 1908.

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• Every dollar spent to punish a drug user or seller is a dollar that cannot be spent collecting restitution from a robber. Every hour spent investigating a drug user or seller is an hour that could have been used to find a missing child. Every trial held to prosecute a drug user or seller is court time that could be used to prosecute a rapist in a case that might otherwise have been plea bargained.

  Randy Barnett

  Children, Missing, Drug

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• Decriminalization would take the profit out of drugs and greatly reduce, if not eliminate, the drug-related violence that is currently plaguing our streets.

  Kurt Schmoke

  Drug, Libertarian, Violence

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• Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit. This is the fine point on which all legal professions of history have based their job security.

  Alexander Herzen

  Jobs, Law, Liberty

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• Every hour spent investigating a drug user or seller is an hour that could have been used to find a missing child.

  Randy Barnett

  Children, Missing, Drug

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• Alcohol is a very patient drug. It will wait for the alcoholic to pick it up one more time.

  Mercedes McCambridge

  Alcohol, Waiting, Drug

  Mercedes McCambridge (1981). “The quality of mercy: an autobiography”, Crown

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• It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

  Upton Sinclair

  Wisdom, Men, People

  Quoted in Evan Esar, The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations (1949)

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• On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.

  Michael Badnarik

  War, Humor, Average

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• Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

  Henry David Thoreau

  War, Men, History

  Civil Disobedience (1849)

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• It is not the function of government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Fall, Errors, Government

  American Communications Ass'n v. Douds (1950)

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• Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit.

  Frank Herbert

  Law

  Frank Herbert (1987). “Chapterhouse: Dune”, p.113, Penguin

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• Every friend of freedom... must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence.

  Milton Friedman

  Army, Jail, Alcohol

  "An Open Letter to Bill Bennett". Milton Friedman, The Wall Street Journal, September 7, 1989.

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• Alcohol didn't cause the high crime rates of the '20s and '30s, Prohibition did. And drugs do not cause today's alarming crime rates, but drug prohibition does.

  James Carriger Paine

  Libertarian Party, Alcohol, Drug

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• The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this.

  Albert Einstein

  Country, Weed, War

  Albert Einstein (2010). “Ideas And Opinions”, p.6, Broadway Books

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